ECE 745 Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) Verification

This course covers the verification process used in validating the functional correctness in today's complex Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). Topics include the fundamentals of simulation based functional verification, stimulus generation, results checking, coverage, debug, and assertions. Provides the students with real world verification problems to allow them to apply what they learn 3 credit hours.

  
   
   
Prerequisite
  

ECE 520 ASIC Design or equivalent. A good working knowledge of Verilog or VHDL is essential. This is not suitable as a first course in a hardware description language.

 
Course Objectives  
  1. To prepare the student to be an entry-level industrial standard cell ASIC verification engineer.
  2. To give the student an understanding of issues and tools related to ASIC verification, with a focus on the methodologies supported by the SystemVerilog language.

 
Course Requirements  

Item

Contribution

Labs

20%

Project 1

20%

Project 2

30%

Midterm

10%

Final Exam

20%

 
Important Note: 

Please note that verification, SytemVerilog and the associated tools are VERY new.  There will be problems, etc. that will have to be overcome as they occur


 
Textbooks  

C. Spear, System Verilog for Verification (Kluwer), 2006. 


Course Outline  
  1. Students will be able to verify a complex digital functional block, finding most of the contained bugs, using SystemVerilog. 
  2. Students will demonstrate an understanding of the basic methodologies used in ASIC Verification and their implementation using SystemVerilog.

 
Computer and Internet Requirements  

NCSU has recommended minimum specifications for computers used for classes. Depending on your computer needs, we recommend your computer meet or exceed the following minimum specifications below.

PCs must have an Intel-compatible 1 GHz processor, 512 MB RAM, 60 GB hard drive with 1 GB free space available, 256 Color Display, CD-ROM drive, 1024x768 (min.) video adapter, sound card, and speakers. The operating system should be Windows XP Pro. Real One Player Basic (available free online) and high speed Internet connection such as cable, DSL, T1 or LAN will be required for EOL courses.

MAC users must have a G4 processor with firewire and USB factory built-in, 512 MB RAM, 60 GB with 1GB free space available, 256 Color Display, CD-ROM drive, 1024x768 (min) video adapter, sound card, and speakers. The operating system must be MacOS 10.4 (minimum) along with the above RealOne and Internet specifications above.

For more detailed information on computer specifications and recommendations, please refer to our website at: http://engineeringonline.ncsu.edu/currentstudents/computeraccess.htm

 

Instructor  

Dr. Meeta Yadav
445 Monteith Research Centre
2410 Campus Shore Drive, Raleigh, NC-27606

E-mail: myadav@ncsu.edu
Home pages:                                     http://www4.ncsu.edu/~myadav/Research/Home.html
http://www.ece.ncsu.edu/erl/faculty/paulf.html